celestialpaperhaze

[celestialpaperhaze]

I found an old New Void drabble that I completely forgot about...

For random people seeing this, the New Void is a crossover thing I wrote combining SPM lore with PMTOK! It had a somewhat sad ending... Sometime after I finished writing that, I had been working on ANOTHER alternate ending that would basically follow what would've happened if everyone survived the original ending. (If that makes sense.)

This drabble is essentially the first interaction the Craftsman has with Olly after everything that happened. I haven't edited this since like 2023 so it's a bit rusty!!

Happy PMTOK day! ^-^

[celestialpaperhaze]

Hey VTSOM fans, if I tried writing a crossover fic where Vincent and Victor end up in Squid Game would anyone want to read that T-T I'm scheming...

[celestialpaperhaze]

People I Wish I Knew Better (?!)

I was tagged by @r0swells, thank you btw! This seems like fun :)

Favorite color: Various shades of magenta and purple! Just anywhere on that gradient.

Currently reading: For a writer, I haven’t actually been reading all that much lately (oopsies). The last thing I read was an old fanfic for Vincent The Secret of Myers… (it was VERY well-written)

Last song: Close To You by PinkPantheress, I saw it just came out and decided to give it a listen. But before that, it was a song from a playlist I made for Vincent The Secret of Myers (can you guess what my current hyperfixation is).

Last film: Amélie!! Watched it for the first time a couple weeks ago and loved it so much, it became an instant favorite!

Last series: SW Andor, very good show. I’ve been rewatching season 2! I love the writing and the acting and the atmosphere and the characters and—

Sweet/Salty/Savory: Sweet, always. My sweet tooth is out of control. I’m sure dentists love me...

Tea or Coffee: This one really depends. I drink a lot more tea than I do coffee, but I’m not opposed to coffee, I’m just very particular about what kind of coffee I drink. Usually I settle for green tea.

Working on: I’ve mostly been working on projects outside of fandom lately, but a couple niche hyperfixations (can you guess what one of them is) are creeping back into my brain so we’ll see if anything comes of that!

I have a hard time with this part for some reason, but I guess I’ll tag @idiotlyer, @izzyatchi, @axl-awesome, and @mochilorddrakeinferno! So sorry if I'm spamming your inboxes, feel free to ignore this if you want!

(And of course, anyone else reading this can participate in it too!)

(Also for anyone it pertains to, I never message people because I'm shy BUT if anyone ever messages me there's a 97.7% chance I'll reply.)

[celestialpaperhaze]

Been awhile since I posted something, so here's a TOK art piece I made for a contest I'm running in the TOK Discord (link in pinned post)! The challenge is to make a piece of fanart using the color palette of a pride flag of your choosing. I chose the Aroace flag :)

I don't draw very often so enjoy my beginner skill-level art

[celestialpaperhaze]

I think about this a lot actually...it's so fun to play TOK while taking note of all the things that have happened and just sort of piecing things together retroactively. I remember committing a whole playthrough to just trying to put together a timeline of Olly's take-over like it was some crime investigation (results varied greatly), and this was one of the moments that stood out the most. It really shows how he deals with his own hurt, too.

olly really really did not want the craftsman to be found considering he freakin froze his house and threw away the doorknob

while i agree olly should’ve gotten more screen time, however he’s more of a aftermath villain (you get to see all the damage he’s done)

[celestialpaperhaze]

THIS!!! But honestly this is one of the (many) things I love the most about Mother 3. The way that pre-timeskip, Tazmily as a setting is very deliberately meant to feel like home, even for the player. It's so easily established as a small little community where everyone knows and looks out for each other. That is, until the events of chapter 3 begin to unfold...and then a few years later, everything has changed. It barely feels like the same village. And the fact it makes the player uncomfortable helps in relating to Lucas. That simple feeling of wondering where your home went and mourning how nothing will ever be the same as it was. It's very immersive storytelling!

Itoi also said that with Mother 3 he wanted to make the town change drastically over time, rather than mirroring other RPGs where you just end up returning to a familiar place where nothing has changed. So even as the plot goes on, Tazmily is at the heart of everything, and you feel it.

The first time I beat Mother 3, I started the game again and almost cried seeing Tazmily in the beginning. It just loses so much by the end and it's heartbreaking.

nahcause i felt like i knew tazmily like the back of my hand and then the timeskip happened and i. EXPLODED. WHAT WERE ALL THESE NEW UNFAMILIAR THINGS THAT PORKY ADDED!! I HATED IT!!! the village was so simple yet built upon love and then suddenly its all renewed and mordern and i. 💥💥💥💥 i did NOT like it.

[celestialpaperhaze]

Me: I’m gonna start chapter 3.

Me: ooo new side quest!

Me: ooooo new side quest!

Me: ooooooo new side quest!

[celestialpaperhaze]

Good news, the dataset has been taken down! Not so great news is they did create a torrent a few days ago, which if you don't know about torrent's they are notoriously difficult to take down for a number of reasons. That's all to say, we won the battle, but the war goes on...

Hey everyone, so I'm just now finding out that millions of Ao3 fics, mine included, are currently sitting in an AI database. I've seen a few posts up here about this already, but thought it'd be best to spread the word.

There's more info on the Ao3 Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1k6ie6v/ao3s_data_was_scraped_for_ai_what_to_know/?sort=confidence.

And on this document from another affected site: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zvP9RF96zIGz6FFnis-fQelvTIy_XrcHGiQPGUE16mQ/edit?tab=t.0.

But basically, someone scraped the archive and compiled the data into a dataset that can be used to train AI. Most (if not all) works posted during/before March of this year and not restricted to "registered users only" are affected! Ao3 has filed a takedown claim, but the uploader is actively resisting this.

It seems possible to request an individual takedown of your works from the database, so this might be what I do. For now, I've locked down my works to registered Ao3 users only. It feels like too little too late and is also not my preferred choice of action, but my awareness of this situation has led me to try and take control of my works in any way I can.

Anyways, tagging all the small fandoms I'm in so more people know about this!

[celestialpaperhaze]

Happy(?) 4/30 to my fellow VTSOM fans!

I didn't finish writing up a new fic for today, so instead have a few 4/30 centric excerpts from fics I wrote back in 2023 before I had a tumblr to talk about them!

(Casing - https://archiveofourown.org/works/44926663) (In which Vincent contemplates if he's still Vincent Edgeworth.)

(The Ride - https://archiveofourown.org/works/46842175) (In which Vincent learns to drive again.)

(The Day The Nightmare Began - https://archiveofourown.org/works/49676047) (A story in three parts; in which the events of April 30th are described in disturbing detail, Vincent undergoes a change, and eventually he returns home).

[celestialpaperhaze]

Hey everyone, so I'm just now finding out that millions of Ao3 fics, mine included, are currently sitting in an AI database. I've seen a few posts up here about this already, but thought it'd be best to spread the word.

There's more info on the Ao3 Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1k6ie6v/ao3s_data_was_scraped_for_ai_what_to_know/?sort=confidence.

And on this document from another affected site: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zvP9RF96zIGz6FFnis-fQelvTIy_XrcHGiQPGUE16mQ/edit?tab=t.0.

But basically, someone scraped the archive and compiled the data into a dataset that can be used to train AI. Most (if not all) works posted during/before March of this year and not restricted to "registered users only" are affected! Ao3 has filed a takedown claim, but the uploader is actively resisting this.

It seems possible to request an individual takedown of your works from the database, so this might be what I do. For now, I've locked down my works to registered Ao3 users only. It feels like too little too late and is also not my preferred choice of action, but my awareness of this situation has led me to try and take control of my works in any way I can.

Anyways, tagging all the small fandoms I'm in so more people know about this!

[celestialpaperhaze]

HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY TO MOTHER 3!!!!!!!

i got kinda emotional while finishing this, I got into the game a year ago and then started posting mother art on Tumblr back in June. A truly beautiful game I played that led to me finding so many sweet people in my life :') i'll never forget it. Thank you Itoi!

close ups under the cut

[celestialpaperhaze]

SPM BIRTHDAY POST 🎉

Happy birthday to Super Paper Mario! Not long ago I joked that I'd write an essay about the Chaos Heart and The Void being tied to each other as a way to allude to Greek Mythology. Well, today that joke becomes reality!

(Very long piece of work beneath the cut).

A RECAP OF CANON. First, I have to talk about the Chaos Heart and The Void in canon. If you're reading this, you've probably already played SPM and know the basics: the Chaos Heart is a dark object that allows the one who possesses it to call forth The Void, which is a giant dimensional hole that consumes all worlds.

In the original Japanese translation of Super Paper Mario, the Chaos Heart is called "Love Power of Chaos." I'll get into this a little later, but this name seems to support the idea that the Chaos Heart is made up of a corrupted, chaotic form of love (an idea also supported by the fact that the Purity Heart is its counterpart).

Meanwhile, The Void is referred to as a "Dimensional Hole," which isn't really anything new.

And then of course, there's the World of Nothing (in Japanese, "The World Without Anything"), the blank slate that remains after The Void consumes a world. The World of Nothing can be thought of as an abstract, it's less of what happens when a world is sucked into The Void, and more of what happens when The Void overtakes a world. There's visual evidence supporting the idea that this nothingness is contained within The Void itself, which could suggest The Void is a bit like a storm with the emptiness at its eye. (Although Castle Bleck is also at one point stated to be in the center of The Void, so this interpretation may not be entirely accurate).

So to summarize that word dump: The Chaos Heart, referred to in Japanese as "Love Power of Chaos," is implied to be made up of a chaotic form of love. The Void is a dimensional hole that consumes the worlds until all that remains is a World of Nothing, a blank slate. Can this blank slate be built upon, constructed into a new, perfect world? That is open for interpretation.

NOW ABOUT ANCIENT GREECE.

Moving on, how do these things tie into Greek Mythology—or rather, Greek Cosmology? Well the most important thing: The word "Chaos" (Khaos) in Ancient Greek means Void, or Abyss. Chaos was said to be the state of being that lay in the absence of existence. Brittanica describes it as "the primeval emptiness of the universe" and Wikipedia as "the cosmological void state preceding the creation of the universe"

Basically, Chaos was The Void, the nonexistence preceding existence in the endless cycle of endings and beginnings. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that the writers of SPM intentionally pulled from this mythos for this parallel, but given the amount of other references to Greek Mythology in the game (most notably those found in the Underwhere), it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

So to summarize that word dump, in Ancient Greek the word "Chaos" means Void, and describes the emptiness that rests in the absence of existence.

INTERPRETING THE TWO.

How can this parallel be applied to Super Paper Mario?

The word "Chaos" in Greek seems to describe what in SPM would be the World of Nothing: a still and silent blanket of infinite, formless space. If we're literal with this interpretation, then the World of Nothing could essentially be seen as what the universe looked like before the worlds formed—which would imply that, yes, new worlds could be built atop the ones destroyed by The Void.

Because the word "Chaos" literally means "Void," the Chaos Heart could be seen as the heart of this nothingness and the core of The Void itself. Or with its literal name, Love Power of Chaos, the Chaos Heart could refer to the power of The Void itself—essentially, if we take it very literal, we could translate the name of the artifact to something like Void Heart, Love Power of Void, Love Power of Abyss, and so on...)

I think this actually backs up the idea of what the Chaos Heart is made up of. Chaotic love is love with a hollowness at its center, love that is not built of stability or purity. A forced marriage (Bowser x Peach), a deep insecurity from the need to loved by others (Luigi perhaps), grief that may have once been love but has since given way to a selfish mission (Count Bleck).

So to summarize, the Chaos Heart = the heart of The Void, and the World of Nothing = a primordial nothingness that can be built upon.

LIGHT AND DARK VS THE FORCES OF NOTHING.

The last thing I'll elaborate on is this section from my original post on the topic:

"And the fact that the Chaos Heart is tied to the abyss of nothingness rather than the cliche darkness trope supports the theme that light and dark are actually two sides of the same coin and that light and dark shouldn't war against each other but instead must come together to resist apathy."

Yes, the Chaos Heart consists of a little bit of darkness. I mean, just look at the thing. But note that the threat in Super Paper Mario isn't that the world will be overrun by darkness, as is the threat in The Thousand-Year Door. The threat is that the worlds will be completely erased. There is something bigger than the war between dark and light--in fact, existence itself consists of a constant balance between light and dark, yin and yang. The Tribe of Ancients and the Tribe of Darkness, Flipside and Flopside, the Dark Prognosticus and the Light Prognosticus. What opposes this balance is neither light nor dark: it is Void, it is Chaos, it is the obliteration of it all.

I mention apathy because I think that's the emotional equivalent of The Void. Apathy comes when you become so hardened by negative emotions that you suppress them all, positive and negative, and are left feeling helpless and numb. In this state, one might decide their purpose has been written for them, that there's no point going against it. They might submit themselves to something that goes against everything they once stood for, simply because a reality where everything is out of their control is easier to accept than one where they have a choice, and because the lack of feeling is safer than the warmth that once lived there. Sound familiar at all?

But of course, if you've spent any time analyzing this game at all, the parallels between The (literal) Void in the sky and the (metaphorical) void in Count Bleck's heart are obvious. The Void grows as the void in his heart has, it's nothing that hasn't been said before. I just find it important to mention that, like the forces driving The Void, Count Bleck's motives aren't rooted solely in his pain and grief, but his surrender. He has surrendered to forces he believes are beyond his control, to the prophecy and to the Chaos Heart. And it's not until he learns that Timpani is alive that he snaps out of this apathy, and begins to entertain the idea of fighting back.

THE END.

At this point I've been writing for around an hour, so I'm gonna stop before I start talking in circles. I hope you've enjoyed the essay, and happy birthday to this game that I truly believe can be interpreted forever!

[celestialpaperhaze]

I finished writing the essay.

April 9th fears me.

One of my favorite things about Super Paper Mario will always be that the Chaos Heart and The Void are so heavily and thematically tied to each other as an allusion to Greek Mythology. The word "chaos" comes from the Ancient Greek word for "void" or "abyss."

If chaos = void, then the Chaos Heart is like the heart of The Void itself.

And in Japanese, the Chaos Heart is called "Love Power of Chaos" because the Chaos Heart is the embodiment of the abyss of love--love that is hollow and untrue (like that of a forced marriage).

And in Ancient Greek myth, "Chaos was originally thought of as the abyss or emptiness that existed before things came into being" (Merriam Webster). Aka the World of Nothing if something new were built upon it.

And the fact that the Chaos Heart is tied to the abyss of nothingness rather than the cliche darkness trope supports the theme that light and dark are actually two sides of the same coin and that light and dark shouldn't war against each other but instead must come together to resist apathy.

In this essay I will-

[celestialpaperhaze]

we are so back we winning

one day i might get back to rh if i interested again-

[celestialpaperhaze]

New rhythm heaven new rhythm heaven new rhythm heaven new rhythm heaven new rhythm heaven

*Flashbacks to the Karate Joe fanfic I wrote a year ago*

He had better be in the new game…

[celestialpaperhaze]

Okay so for those of you curious, the "OC" who I have been spinning around in my head for awhile is actually a character from The New Void. (SPM x TOK crossover for anyone viewing this who has no idea what that is). Fürst's apprentice!

I think the most content I ever posted of him was the New Void short story "Prognosticus" and the massive lore dump in chapter 15. But basically, I have him tied to a lot of the more ambiguous Ancient lore from Super Paper Mario, specifically the 3000 years ago era. And he may have (accidentally) written the Dark Prognosticus! That's the short version! The long version is...very long.

Reasons I haven't lore-dumped about the apprentice yet:

I finished with The New Void so long ago that I don't really know how to revive it or segue into the apprentice lore.

The apprentice has undergone so much development that I'm not even sure how deeply the lore's tied to that story anymore.

I have a VERY hard time fleshing out details, which means figuring out both the nuances of Ancient SPM lore and the apprentice's entire lore is a little bit difficult.

That said I do want to try talking more about him sometime, I just have to figure out where and how to start!

[celestialpaperhaze]

Mother 3 appreciation post because today I was reminded the Ultimate Chimera exists:

(This fella) (TOTALLY harmless by the way...)

One of my favorite parts of Mother 3 takes place in a big laboratory where animals are being turned into mechanical amalgams--like the Horsantula (horse + spider), the Cattlesnake (cow + snake), the Ostrelephant (ostrich + elephant), and so on... It is VERY similar to the amalgams in Undertale's True Lab, which should come as no surprise to anyone given that Mother 3 (and Mother 2 aka Earthbound) are direct inspirations of that game.

I love this part of the game because it feels kind of like the RPG gameplay turns into a survival horror. When the Ultimate Chimera is freed from its cage and starts roaming around the lab, you have to avoid it or else you'll get an instant game over. To make things even better (or worse), the background music stops playing during this section, and you hear nothing but the roars of the chimera and the increasingly frantic squeals of the soldiers nearby.

Unless, of course, the Ultimate Chimera is in the same room as you, in which case the music proceeds as normal. You only get a warning when you're safe, apparently!

Anyway this has been a Mother 3 appreciation post (please play Mother 3).